Elegy For A Son

‘Yes, I am lying in the Ground But my lips are moving' : OsipMandelstam Your life was a blind alley Of blacked out windows Perpetually stuck in a winter of the soul Tormented by Harpies To ward off night terrors In childhood, you gripped your grandfather's hand My little black pearl Your hopes were hammered out On a hard anvil The forge that beat your talents into ash The family album's seared by your deletion Memory's the only dog-eared page that sticks Nobody ever strewed your bed with petals Or opened your ears to the lark's ascending song Death hounded you day to day When all you ever wanted Was a place at the hearth A door wide open in welcome